Will no one stand up for Joe Average?

Lone supporter: John Denham has spoken in support of 'Joe Average' in light of the government's equality laws

Behold Joe Average, who stands among you every day, a hapless symbol of our topsy-turvy society.

Nobody writes or talks much about poor old Joe, even if he is the most harried and exploited person in modern British life. Look at him. What a sucker!

For Joe is Mr Ordinary, a very median guy, a decent, middleclass citizen in every way.

All his life, he has been a law-abiding, tax-paying, manners minding, passport-holding pillar of society.

He has never been overdrawn nor arrested. He has never been under suspicion nor caused anyone any trouble.

He pays his bills on time. He recycles his rubbish. He knows his place in the queue. Where has all this got him?

Absolutely nowhere. Joe is stuck in the system, sinking fast.

Yes. The Government certainly saw him coming, didn't it? Good old Harriet Harman has had Joe Average in her sights for years.

This week, even a Cabinet Minister pointed out that Miss Harman's new equality laws risk alienating middle-class voters such as Joe.

John Denham, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, suggested that Harman's beloved legislation for closing the social gap could cost the party dear in terms of support in Middle England.

He risked her wrath by rubbishing the obsessive, egalitarian approach to helping the needy that has dominated Left-wing thinking since the Minister for Women and Equality was in pop sox and pigtails.

But I wonder if even this bat squeak of rebellion is too little, too late for the future of Joe Average.

Harman's new laws will legally bind every single public authority in the country to bridge the gap between rich and poor.

Existing legislation where policies must consider race, age, gender, disability and sexuality will be extended to - ominously - include social background.

Elsewhere, employers are to be encouraged to discriminate in favour of women and black candidates.

Of course, it is admirable that everyone should be given a fair chance, but how can it be egalitarian if one person is continually being pushed to the bottom of the pile to benefit all the others?

And things are not going to get better for him any time soon. Basically, his problem is that he is not poor enough, ethnic enough, foreign enough or female enough to qualify for help from anyone.

On the totem pole of British politics, Joe is the final carving before you hit dirt. He is the person whose needs are considered last and whose problems are discussed least.

If pips are going to squeak, you can bet that those pips will belong to him. Not for him the overblown sense of entitlement or misguided belief that the world owes him a duck house or a sheaf of state benefits.

Yet if anything bad is going to happen, it always seems to happen to Joe. Through no fault of his own. Others are spending his money for him, while his own cash is running through his fingers like sand.

Perks? There are no perks for Joe Average. Even if there was a system for him to fiddle, he would not do so, for he is a man of natural integrity.

He is not the kind of person to expect others to pay for his second home's fitted kitchen or his tree surgeon or his lush cream velour carpets. And if he wanted to use someone else's hard-earned BBC licence fee money to buy a £90 bottle of champagne for Bruce Forsyth, he would at least - at least! - have the decency to ask first.

Through no fault of his own, Joe Average's pension pot - for which he sacrificed and saved - is going up in a puff of smoke.

Most blue-chip companies now admit their final-salary schemes are 'unsustainable', while two separate studies have revealed that Britain's state pension is the worst in the Western world.

Poor old Joe! He played by the rules, and the rules bit back. Increasingly, people like him are taken for granted, treated as political ballast.

All the Government ever wants from him is a vote. They certainly don't want to hear what he has to say or attend to his needs.

So Average Joes have become the quietly seething majority, those this country is selling down the river like freshly-cut lumber. Will they remain put-upon, abused, exploited and harried for now and for ever more? Or just until the next election?

A little Olay for a photo finish

Riddle-me-thisI. How much Olay does it take to look as young as Twiggy in her new adverts for the iconic moisturiser?

Too good to be true? Twiggy looks younger than her daughter in these publicity shots for Olay

Girls, I think I can answer this one. First, take a generous blob of greasy Olay out of the pot. Then use your fingers to smear it all over. . . the camera lens.

Come on. Stop it. Twigs is a lovely woman, but in these shots she looks younger than her own daughter. It's scary!

'Team Katie' need a wake up call

Can Katie Price sink any lower into her pit of self-reverence? This week, the topless model and living brand grinned like a lottery winner when en route to her divorce lawyer in a 'Team Katie' T-shirt.

It's as if the whole thing is a joke to her. Meanwhile, her children, who seem to have spent most of their time with Peter Andre since the couple split, look distressed and troubled. Is it any wonder?

This evil spectre haunts us still

Macabre reminder: Myra Hindley is photographed by Ian Brady shortly after they were believed to have buried one of their child victims

Even now, nearly half a century after it was taken, this newly released photograph of Myra Hindley still has the power to shock.

See her up on Saddleworth Moor, wrapped in a warm coat as she poses for her lover Ian Brady.

At first glance, it might seem like an entirely innocent image.

Yet evil comes howling down the decades in the form of her knowing smirk.

And there is something else unsettling.

For among the rugged backdrop of rocks, there is also an atmosphere: something unspeakable and complicit between sitter and photographer; a certain sense of an indulgence shared and a triumph celebrated.

And knowing what we all know, it makes for uncomfortable viewing.

Shortly before this picture was taken, the couple are believed to have disposed of one of their victims, 12-year-old Keith Bennett.

Police suspect that Brady took this photograph as a macabre location marker, a reminder to help him find the scene later.

Yet to the enduring sadness of the victim's mother Winnie Johnson, who is now 75, the irony is that Keith - alone among the victims - has never been found.

In the end, all Mrs Johnson wants is for her son's body to be located so that she can give him a proper funeral. Now it looks like even this scant comfort will never happen.

After 45 years and a hunt that has involved teams of clinical psychologists, geologists, anthropologists and detectives, police have called off the search.

Every avenue has been exhausted. Hindley died in jail in 2002. Brady is the only man who could give the ailing Mrs Johnson some peace of mind, but he refuses to cooperate.

Today, he is a moral rag of a human being, still on hunger strike in his high-security prison bed. Not even a glint of humanity can spark through the psychopathic depths of his dark soul.

Poor Mrs Johnson, whose pain is plain for all to see. Even now, there is no peace for her.

Mrs Slocombe really was the cat's whiskers

Mollie Sugden died this week and her passing seems to require much more than a lavender-scented hankie dabbed at a teary eye.

Sugden was an accomplished comic actress, most famous for her heroic portrayal of Mrs Slocombe, the snobbish shop assistant in Are You Being Served?

I loved Mrs Slocombe, and the show itself, which ended in 1985. Of course, it would never be allowed now. It would be banned. Outlawed, even.

Marvellous comic: Mollie Sugden, pictured in her role as Mrs Slocombe in 'Are You Being Served?', died this week

Set in a fictional department store, it was ripe with sexual stereotypes and double entendres, while being obsessed with the class system.

It was like a pantomime, really, complete with ludicrous catchphrases, camp costumes and, of course, Mrs Slocombe's multihued selection of wigs.

She was a marvellous British comic creation. The miracle is that Mollie Sugden somehow managed to play the role, with all its references to her favourite feline pet, with a straight face.

There were always problems with her cat, whose name we never discovered. Who was going to let her pussy out?

Sometimes, it was out all night and needed to be thawed. At the first sign of danger, its hair stood on end.

Once, it even 'gasped all night' during a heatwave. Temperature control was clearly a problem.

'Well,' Mrs Slocombe once said, 'the central heating broke down. I had to light the oven and hold my pussy in front of it.'

My favourite was some convoluted plot when she had to telephone a neighbour to perform some emergency cat care.

'Mrs Slocombe here,' she began. 'I wonder, would you do me a favour?
Would you go to my front door, bend down and look through the
letterbox? And if you can see my pussy, would you drop a sardine on the
mat?'

So childish. So puerile. But so very, very funny. RIP, dear Mollie Sugden.

We still can't take the heat

Do we really need all these guides to teach us how to cope with a teensy heatwave?

I
was going to mock all the advice to citizens to stay out of the sun at
midday, drink lots of water and, yes, wear a hat. Talk about stating
the obvious.

But that was before a police dog handler
accidentally killed his two German shepherds by leaving them locked in
his car on the hottest day of the year.

No doubt the officer involved, who might be prosecuted, will be heartbroken.

However,
despite the tragedy, it is a lesson for all of us to learn that it
takes only 20 minutes for animals to die in this situation. So how long
for a baby?

She was known as a shy and timid schoolgirl who would never push herself forward. She could barely even swim. Yet
against astonishing odds, 14-year-old Bahia Bakari somehow survived the
Yemenia Airlines crash and its terrifying aftermath. Showing incredible
physical and mental strength, she clung onto a piece of wreckage in the
middle of the Indian Ocean for 13 hours before she was rescued.Note that, including Bahia, there have been only 13 sole survivors of airline crashes since 1970. The number is unlucky for some. But obviously not for her.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw has decreed that Ronnie Biggs will
die in jail. Good. There is no reason that Biggs be set free. After a
life of crime, he lived high on the hog in Brazil for decades and never
showed any remorse for his wrongdoing. And if he did get out of jail,
he is exactly the kind of crim-class goon that posh losers like Guy
Ritchie tend to idolise. Mr Ex-Madonna might even want to make a film
of Big Ron's exploits. Another good reason to keep him banged up. For
all our sakes.